


Hunting Party

by Sholio



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Arctic, Bickering, Canadian Shack, Gen, Humor, Podfic Available, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:18:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is a manly bonding experience. Living off the land, hunting, fishing. Very manly." For the Canadian Shack challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting Party

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Мужское занятие](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5601511) by [Amaryllis133](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amaryllis133/pseuds/Amaryllis133)



> This is for Cesperanza's [Canadian Shack 10th Anniversary Party](http://cesperanza.dreamwidth.org/501762.html)! Explanation at the link. Some canons don't have a Canada, but everywhere has some sort of shack.

"Are we there yet?"

"If we were there," Sokka said with slow and deliberate patience, "you would be able to see the cabin. Do you see the cabin?"

There was a long silence. The two teenagers trudged along through the snow. Finally Zuko said, "I think we're lost."

"We are not lost. I know this part of the icepack like the back of my hand. I hunted out here all the time when I was a kid. And there's a hunters' cabin just over this ridge," Sokka panted, as they climbed it.

They topped the rise to be confronted by the sight of more stark-white icepack, stretching cracked and riffled to the _next_ ridge.

"We're going to die out here," Zuko said gloomily. "I promised Mai I wouldn't. She's going to be so angry. Not to mention the international incident it'll cause."

Sokka whacked him in the back of the head.

"Hey!"

"Don't be an idiot," Sokka said. "If we actually _are_ lost, not that it's possible, did you forget who you're traveling with? My wilderness survival skills are second to none. All I have to do is build us a snow cave and we'll be perfectly cozy. Not to mention," he added, deciding that it was worthwhile to give a nod to his alleged hunting partner's skill set as well, "you can set things on _fire,_ you dunce."

"I could set _you_ on fire." Zuko looked a little more cheerful.

They slogged on. The blue-and-white horizon did not change in any noticeable way.

 

*

 

"We should have taken the flying bison," Zuko said.

"We don't _need_ the flying bison! This is a manly bonding experience. Living off the land, hunting, fishing. Very manly."

Zuko waved a hand at the infinite white nothing around them. "I don't see anything to hunt, do you?"

"That's because we have to _find_ them first. By tracking them with manly hunting skills. Honestly, you're not very good at this, are you?"

Zuko pointed a finger skyward. A small flame bloomed at the tip. "I can send up a flare, and Aang and Katara will be here with the bison in half an hour."

"We DON'T. NEED. THE. BISON."

 

*

 

When the cabin finally did appear, perched atop a black crest of rock thrust up through the icepack, Sokka was as surprised as Zuko -- though he managed to hide it better.

Not that the cabin was a great improvement over the outdoors. Zuko stared around the interior, at the snow blowing across the bare-rock floor through giant gaps in the driftwood walls.

"There used to be a hide covering," Sokka said, leaning against the doorframe (there was no door) and attempting to appear cool and manly and not at all frostbitten. "Most likely blew off last winter."

"You _think_?" Zuko morosely sat down on a knee-high ridge of ice where the glacier had melted, spilled through the gaps in the walls, and refrozen in a large hump across one end of the cabin's cramped interior. "This isn't a cabin, Sokka. This is a shack. No, a shack would be a definite improvement over ... whatever this is."

Sokka shrugged off his pack and dropped it on the floor. "This is the cabin, and we're camping here."

"There's no roof!"

"That's why we use our manly construction skills to _build_ one."

They both looked around, through the wide cracks between the uneven spars of driftwood, at the expanse of white stretching away to the horizon.

"Out of what?" Zuko said. "Air?"

"Out of _snow,_ of course. You cut it and stack it." Sokka untied his snow-cutting knife from his pack. "Come on, I learned to do this when I was a little kid. Everyone knows how to do it."

"You want to build us a shelter out of _snow?_ Are you serious?" Zuko shivered and hunched deeper into his borrowed Water Tribe furs. "That can't possibly be warm."

"Fine, set yourself on fire and stay warm _your_ way. I'll be over here, building us a nice, snug little snow shelter with my manly survival skills."

 

*

 

After building a cozy little snow-cave -- with a certain amount of reluctant and inexpert help from Zuko -- Sokka found that the ragged lattice of driftwood was no longer relevant to the overall structure, so they pulled it down to feed their small fire. It was really very comfortable -- in Sokka's opinion, anyway. Zuko, who had taken over the job of feeding the fire, wrapped himself in most of their furs and huddled as close to the flames as he could get.

"Who wants to go hunting?" Sokka asked cheerfully. "There's a turtle-seal feeding ground just over the ridge to our left." He paused. "Or maybe it was to the right."

"Come get me when it's spring," the bundle of furs muttered.

"What are you talking about?" Sokka asked, genuinely baffled. "It's summer!"

Zuko risked peeking out of his cocoon. "How can you _tell_?"

"On account of how it's light out there," Sokka pointed out. "If it were winter, it would be like this, but dark all the time. And colder."

Zuko stared at him for a long moment in horror. Then he flinched, and swiped a hand across his face. "Great," he said. "Now it's raining."

Sokka frowned at him, trying to figure out if he was joking. "What do you mean, raining? It can't rain. It's too cold for one thing, and for another, we're insi--"

They both looked up at the ceiling of their snow cave.

*PLOOF*

 

*

 

"So how did the manly trip of very manly manliness go?" Katara asked, looking down from Appa's back at her brother and Zuko trudging into the village. "I thought you guys weren't supposed to be back until the day after tomorrow."

Zuko made a disgusted sound and headed straight for the steam baths.

Sokka made an equally disgusted sound and paused to look up at her. "Katara, I take back everything I ever said about hunting with you. Well." He considered this. "Maybe half the things I said. At least you have the sense not to build a _bonfire_ in an _igloo!_ "

Zuko spun on his heel and called back, "Don't blame me! I wasn't the one who had the bright idea to build a house out of _snow!_ "

"It's not a _house!_ " Sokka bellowed back.

"Excuse _me_! A SHACK!"

 

*

 

Some months later, when the frostbite had healed, Zuko invited Sokka to come along on a traditional Fire Nation firesnipe hunt in one of the active volcanoes near the capital.

Katara caught the gleam in Zuko's eye, even if Sokka didn't, but she decided not to warn her brother.

Some people just had to learn the hard way.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Hunting Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8910196) by [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins), [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio)




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